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I thought it was the end of an era last year when Bruce Wayne aka Batman died last year in comic land.

But this is truly heartbreaking. After 65 years of keeping kids laughing as they grew up while these characters stayed teenagers, finally the gang of Riverdale High are growing up and graduating from college. And there's a marriage in store this year.

Only it ain't the one we all dreamed of. I mean, C'mon. We've all grown up rooting for our favourite blonde in the whole wide world, Betty to one day win over Archie with her eternal goodness and make him look beyond the money and ooh-laa-laa of Veronica.

As per the news release from Archie Comics Publications though, that ain't gonna happen. After 6 decades of entertaining us, Archie will finally be settling down. And well... the title says it all, doesn't it ?

"Archie weds Veronica Part 1 of 6 - The Proposal"

Sure, they were THE AMERICAN stereotypes. Sure, it's probably been a decade since any of us has picked up an Archie comic, what with Ross, Rachel, Chandler and Monica taking over. But can you deny you don't feel something when you hear that 'Archie is finally gonna marry Veronica' ? That after watching this depiction of American culture pass hands from generation to generation, we've finally reached this stage where it feels like we're hearing that a childhood classmate's getting married and a flood of pleasant memories wooshes past you ?

It's funny how people from all over the world. across 150 countries. have voiced their opinions on how attached they feel to these characters... actually, it ain't funny. It's in fact heartening to see that, atleast for a moment in time, people can be united in sharing joy, surprise and supporting each other's opinions irrespective of caste, creed, country, God etc etc. It's heartening to have people remember that point in their childhood when they were hiding an Archie digest in their textbook and smiling everytime Jughead made an ass of Reggie or Mr Lodge pulled one over Archie. Back when life was still all 'fun and games.' Remember those times ?

As for me, maybe I've read too many Jeffrey Deaver novels or seen too many 'underdog wins the day' movies, but I'm still rooting for Betty to not end up with the stigma of being the eternal doormat . C'mon. Juggie !! Knock some sense into him before it's too late.

What about you guys ? What do you think of Archie marrying Veronica ?

Final thought : I can't shake the mental image in my head about how, if this were an Indian comic strip, there'd be some mindless social activist registering a court case against the publishers for hurting Indian sentiments !! Maybe a Sati Savitri Betty Sena running amok in their offices and burning effigies of Veronica in the streets and cultural icons... doing poojas and breaking coconuts in temples to change Archie's mind. Sari clad ladies beating their chests on the street and wailing, come September 9, 2009 ( The wedding day. )

Coming back to work is always tough after a long layoff. More so when you're in a job where patients lives are dependent on you. Because no matter how long you've worked, after a long stint out of the operation theatre, the doses of those opioids and narcotics get blurry and your hands falter as you try to identify the 0.5cm subarachnoid space adjacent to the spinal cord.

Entering the OT for the first time as the seniormost resident, I'd hoped for a quiet entry back into work - a few minor cases to get the feel of things again, a junior beside me to ease my tensions and handle the cases while I 'pseudo-monitor' and lots of 'sitting down and relaxing my booty' time.

7 days later, I've just returned back to the room after completing my last case for the week now at 6am on a Sunday. Hopefully, there won't be any more for the remaining 3 hours of my duty today before I lay me down to rest.

Looking back over the last week, I find it ironical that I'd hoped for a quiet entry into the operation theatre. My scorecard reads :

- 5 Caesarian Sections

- 4 fractured limbs

- 3 Perforated intestines

- 3 medical termination of pregnancies

- 2 Spine surgeries

- 2 laparoscopic surgeries

- 2 Circumcisions

- 1 Ruptured liver abscess

- 1 Separated skull

- 1 8 hour cosmetic dental surgery

- 1 8 hour upper limb nerve repair

- An octogenarian with a broken leg

& An infant with a deformed heart

And I have only this to say : All jokes aside, thank God it was a slow week !

Ya sure, I didn't get my relaxed entry into the operation theatre, but you know what ? I realised that some things, like riding the waves of a patient's vitals intra-operatively or handling a sinking patient, comes back to you when you need it the most, no matter how long you've been away from the work place.

P.S. Of course, one of the disastrous perks of becoming the chief resident is that I've been handed a bunch of 8 newbie residents who ( unfortunately for me ) happen to be college toppers, ex-ICU staff and even a woman who's edited her own medical text book. It's not a pretty sight when so much knowledge comes up against a doctor who has trouble remembering which patient he was looking after before he went for his lunch break.

To put it in perspective, imagine the Greek Gods being ruled by Shrek !! There's only so many times I can avoid their super-duper questions by

a) Pretending I'm hard of hearing.

b) Leaving the operation theatre to drink another glass of water.

c) Act as if my patient is in a bad state and much as I'd like to encyclopedia their ass with my insanely vast knowledge, for now I have to focus on the patient.

d) Scratch my bushy beard, pretending to ponder the answer, then turn the focus to my beard and ask their esteemed opinion on whether I should dye my goatie burgundy.

Like many pseudo-net savvy guys, I too was perturbed by the sound of a "viral video". It sounded like one of those .exe files that would serve you a hot cup of viruses with your cornflakes if you clicked on it after which you could spend all day debugging, formatting, reformatting and moaning over the lost porn... I mean important medical documents in your hard drive.

Turns out I was wrong... again. To quote from Wikipedia "A viral video is a video clip that gains widespread popularity through the process of Internet sharing, typically through email or Instant messaging, blogs and other media sharing websites".

Which is a cool thing... because you get to see people's tastes and also how insignificant things can make you a celebrity.

I found especially hilarious the "Rick Roll'd phenomenon." To those who don't know what it is, it is a prank wherein you send someone a link promising them something they want to see ( let's see : for men, that would be cute b**bies, for women cute b*bies ( O and A, in case you're really wondering !!! ) Anyway, you click on the link and instead of what you've been promised, you get sent to the one hit wonder Rick Astley's Video of "Never Gonna Give You Up". For some reason, this prank really went viral and reached bizarre levels where you had news channels "Rick Rolling their anchors" and my personal favourite "the one where Astley RickRolls the Macy Thanksgiving Parade Live". Personally, I'm just glad with all the available options for porn, gore, smut and slut available, people still chose this funky ( yes, I said funky.. ) number to turn viral ( the present count stands at 16 million views... phew !! ) rather than something derogatory.

Anyway, this video below is an amazing video I came across that was apparently taken in the late 60's. It reminds me of an era when mankind was all about those two words.. man and kind, and how they could affect even the most ferocious of creatures.

The 'Bodyguard' soundtrack is the icing on this lovely video, don'cha think ?

Anyway, there are so many many awesome videos online that deserve to be promoted and turned viral. And while I'll need more time and posts to show some which I think are the best, I'd like you all to see this lovely video I came across about a young kid suffering from a fatal illness and the amazing lengths which someone went to just for his sake. I've seen it thrice already and truth be told, it brings a tear to my eye everytime. Truly uplifting, the ending is, don't you think ?

We voted for change, for a safer government, for a better India blah blah blah... right ?

Turn to any news channel today on the eve of election results and what do you see - the two big guys, the palm and the lotus and wooing all their sworn enemies and the sworn enemies are just waiting for the results to decide whom they'll support. In short, there never was an agenda for any party, was there ?

You have Shiv Sena telling they'll only support BJP, but if they lose, then they'll support Sharad Pawar as PM since he's Marathi Manoos ( a very valid reason, no doubt !! ). The fat lady, Jayalalaitha, promises to sing her tune only after seeing which way the election goes. Minutes earlier, the news came that BJP is wooing Mayawati - the same Mayawati who went hammer and tongs on Varun Gandhi. The Congress will support anyone as long as it's not BJP/Shiv Sena - their words, not mine.

To sum up, if I had voted for change, it was inconsequential since the people I voted for went and joined the people I hated, changing their stance AFTER ALL THE PEOPLE OF INDIA had finished voting for them.

No agenda, no morals... no change. So tell me, as many say, I have no right to blame any party since I didn't vote. I'm ok with that.

But how annoying does it feel to vote for change and realise you've ended up voting for the same government you didn't want to see come to the centre because the people you voted for gave up their ideology for a cushioned seat ?

The heroine and the hero's mother are tied up, strapped to some colourful time bombs. The villain and his gang of goons are all laughing ridiculously, even though technically they're close enough to get blasted if the time bomb explodes. Not to worry however as the warehouse door gets smashed as our hero enters jumping/in a horse/in a jeep. He and his gang of 3 college friends, one servant and one father ( and horse, if applicable ) fight the 35 goons, with the servant defeating his opponents using comical tactics. After beating the crap out of 34.5 goons, the focus turns on the heroine and suddenly the villain remembers he has a remote control for the time bomb as well. But our hero's too quick for him, beating the crap out of him till the police arrive. They arrest the villain. Just as the time bomb is removed and the couple hug, the villain steals the head officer's gun and turns towards the hero. Luckily his bullet hits the diving geriatric father and before he can shoot a second round, the hero takes a gun and kills the villain. Of course, the shot to the old dad is harmless and with the dead body lying there, the couple, the servant, dad and 3 best friends form a line and tell a cheap joke looking directly into the camera. THE END.

There. I'm sorry everyone but I've just told you the ending of 80 % of all Bollywood movies.( 95 %, if this were still the 90's. ) Sure, there maybe variations ( Daddy dies of the bullet wound, there maybe a NRI babe who's been chasing the hero but in the end decides to let the other girl keep him, gives up mini skirts and spends the rest of her life wearing white sarees ), but this was the standard formula, wasn't it ? And that's where we always got stuck. We never knew how to end movies... and the fact is that a good ending always tugs at your heart or mind, depending on what it aims to achieve.

So what were the best movie endings ever ? Here's my list of some movies that raised the bar simply because of a tremendous ending.Please note, there are movie spoilers here revealing the endings, so be warned before you continue reading.

Category I : The "Oh my God !! No way !!" ending.

Excluded : All teenage slasher/gore movies wherein in the last scene the dead villain suddenly comes is seen hidden in the cupboard/under the bed/ in my shorts. So that means no Scream/I know what you did last summer/Urban Legends/Final destination. Because we expected that !!

Consolation prizes : Too many to choose. So I had to leave out quite a few from the final 5 list. Still here are some movies worth the ticket just for the twist in the tail.* Seven : "What's in the box ?" he asks. I remember this movie more than a decade after I last saw it for the tremendous ending between Brad Pitt as a cop who has no idea what's in the parcel and a very very calm murderous Kevin Spacey.* The Usual Suspects : Watch it for Kevin Spacey. Avoid the Hindi version - Chocolate.* Fight Club : Same director as Seven. You feel there's a twist coming up, but you ain't expecting what happens in the end.

* Primal Fear : This is more out of respect to the book really. But still, Edward Norton playing a choir boy with split personality accused of murder and on trial with only a pompous lawyer ( Richard Gere ) to save his ass from the gallows makes for compelling viewing. But somebody's gotta secreeeeeeet....5.a Memento : You have a guy telling the story backwards. He loses his memory every 15 minutes and we're seeing it from the ending when he's killed someone to the beginning in short 5 minute bursts. It should have been a terribly annoying "creative concept" movie. But the ending when you realise you've been wrong about our hero all along changes the whole way you look at the movie and makes this a classic.

5.b Dead Silence : I really thought this was a cheap B-grade horror movie from the 80s. It's only while doing research to write this bit that I found out it was released in 2007 !!! Let's see. You have a ventriloquist dummy that's around when people die, their face stuck in a horrific pose. And then you have a guy trying to find out how the dummy's involved. Everything about this movie suggests it's gonna be a cheesy, cheap graphic, blood laden movie. Quite the opposite actually. It turns out to be a spooky horror mystery ( yes, with cheap graphics ) with an ending you'd never guess. Oh !! And the reason the dummy here has the same name as the dummy in the Saw series... same director/ writer for both !! Should have known.. should have known.

4. The Ring : Tell me you didn't get freaked out when the kid's face goes into shock when Naomi Watts tells him she saved the little girl Samara. And then you realise that little Samara doesn't want your pity or to be heard, after all. She ain't after redemption.. She's just after you.

That's the last time I'm ever gonna trust a uncombed little Japanese girl who comes out of Tv sets EVER AGAIN in my life.

3. The Prestige : 2 turn of the century magicians spend their entire lives trying to understand and outdo the other. While Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale ( Wolverine and Batman, for crying out loud ) meant eye candy for the girls, the script was totally filled with hidden hints that there was more than met the eye. And the ending revealed just how far both magicians were willing to go to succeed. A smart man's movie. Another movie loosely based on magicians with a good ending - Edward Norton's The Illusionist.

2. Saw : The movie had a pretty creepy feel to it throughout. Two guys awakening to find they're chained in a toilet with a dead man lying in between them. That was the introduction to the phenomenon that was the vigilante serial killer who 'doesn't kill', Jigsaw ( I still say India needs a 100 Jigsaws in real life. Maybe then, people will be a little more scared to commit crimes. ) Anyway, the ending catches you totally unawares. The signature theme music rising to a crescendo followed by awesome 'betcha didn't see that coming' endings would become a trademark of the series. Isn't it weird though that there have been 5 Saw movies even though the villain died in the 3rd part ???

1. The Sixth Sense :Well, really, there's no way this wasn't getting on the list, right ? If you're lucky like me, noone told you the ending before you saw the movie and you enjoyed the moment when Bruce Willis's wife drops the ring and the flashbacks begin, suddenly turning a pretty dull movie into an amazing art of storytelling. Shyamalan has tried repeatedly to repeat this kahani mein twist style of his with terrible results, though Unbreakable had a good ending too which you don't see coming.

I'm sure I've missed out some movies here. Anyway, tell me what you think of this list and if there are any you'd recommend just for their totally unexpected endings.